Pure Lead?

[jrmflintlock]

So Erik550c asked if he should get Lead with Tin or Antimony in a topic and he Got a lot of Pure lead answers. As far as I saw I did not see any rational to the call for pure lead.

In an effort to educate myself and hopefully others, I Ask the question, Why Pure Lead?

I saw someone on this forum trying out other substitutes because of CA, laws with great success. The Patch is what engages the rifling and causes the ball to spin. The weight is what retains the energy. Why does it have to be pure lead?

I shoot a 50/50 mixture of Pure lead and wheel weights myself for several reasons.

1) That's that way I was told to do it 20+ years ago when I started molding RB by a 75 year old skinner. Not that its right, but Don't fix what aint broke!
2) Wheel weights are cheep and easy to find.
3) Stretches my supply of pure lead.
4) I have never had a critter smacked with one of my Non-pure lead RB complain that it was too hard. While on the contrary my buddy hit a Oregon Whitetail with a pure lead RB at 40 yards pushed along by 80 grains of FF and all it did was bruise the Shoulder. No penetration! We know this because he got a second shot at the same deer that only hit ribs and put the critter down. (Tracking in Fresh Snow. A hunter who targets specific deer due to lots of scouting. That's how we know it was the same deer)

On another note I shoot only wheel weights out of my smooth bore because them .62 cal balls use up a lot of lead. Aint never had a critter say that the Lead was too hard either. A .62 Caliber hole is plenty big enough to leave a blood trail a blind man could follow.

Anyways, Why Pure Lead? :hmm:

 

[necchi]

Nobody has said it has to be pure lead, it's just nice to use.
Your friends story of a bruised shoulder Deer with a pure lead ball is "one off",, never heard the likes of it before and not enough for me to count as any indication of the lead consistency of the ball used.
A properly patched pure lead ball does have the lands/grooves imparted to the ball itself through the fabric,,
Nothing new here,, this topic has been done several times already,,
Nobody say's it has to be pure lead,, use what you get.
Wheel weights from 20yrs or longer ago used to be consistent,, some of the stuff out there now-a-days doesn't even have lead and won't even melt.

 

[MountainRanger]

I find that the purer the lead, the easier it is to cast. Melts faster. I rarely hunt any longer so that isn't an issue. I agree that a pure lead ball bruising a deer (as in bouncing off) doesn't sound right. I'd bet a dollar to a stale doughnut that if that happened, he didn't get a full load of powder behind the ball.

 

[jrmflintlock]

I agree with you entirely on all counts even the bruised deer. Once does not make it the norm. Lots of things could have happened.

I just found it interesting that the Consensus was "pure lead" with no explanation as to why, and I guess the guy who asked did not ask why only what was better tin or antimony. Which only a few responded to. Most Just said "pure Lead Only for ML use"

What I would like to know is Why? There are a lot of very smart fellers and Ladies who might be able to shed a little light in the subject. I did a quick search on this here forum and could not find where it may have been hashed out in the past.

Most have said Lead with Tin or Antimony is good for modern cartridges but too hard for ML. My 50/50 Pure lead/Wheel weight RB's flatten out nicely inside of mule deer and elk. And in Small game it could be a steel ball for all they care, they are in the pot.
I figure in the old days What they mined was what was used with no thought to how "pure" it was. Figuring as most elements are not usually found in their pure state. We have access to much more refined metals than our predecessors did.

Just askin'. :grin:

 

[nhmoose]

50/50 lead wheel weight great for suppository guns not ML.

Where did they get the wheel weights in the 18th and 19th century.

Pure lead IMHO for patch RB smooth bores what ever you have.

Pushing a hardened ball down a bore without a steel rod and mallet is hard is why.

 

[MountainRanger]

I'll stick with my 'why' pure or as pure as you can get is that it melts at a lower temp than an alloy.

Soft lead also 'grabs' the rifling better than a hard ball.

My test is the thumbnail test. If I can put a groove in a bar of lead with a fingernail or thumb nail, I use it. The mentors I had in the mid-1970's suggested soft lead... So that's what I've always used.

I think, however, that if wheel weights work for you keep up the fire! Pure or very sot lead is probably closer to what the guys in the 18th and 19th century used, but this is the 21st and we have to use what we can get our 'Big' hands rotf: ) on

 

[Patocazador]

Wheel weights are various compositions. Stick-on wheel weights are very close to 'pure' lead while the clip-ons can be many different compositions.

For years I used dental x-ray backings and cast maxi-balls from them. They were probably about 85+% lead and punched right through deer and left them dead. I now use pure lead because dental x-rays don't use conventional film any longer.

Pure lead, especially in conicals, accepts rifling very well and expands upon contact with firm objects making it very suitable for hunting.

 

[coloradoclyde]

Pure lead is best because it;..... is consistent, obturates easily, offers maximum expansion at low velocities, is easiest to pull, is most often the cheapest to buy, IMO is the most accurate in a ML, casts easily....etc.....etc....

Yes! other materials will work....But the question is "what is best"....pure lead, in a muzzleloader with a round ball....

 

[FishDFly]

And let the fight begin for the 4,137 time.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

1) That's that way I was told to do it 20+ years ago when I started molding RB by a 75 year old skinner. Not that its right, but Don't fix what aint broke!

Did the skinner tell you why he didn't use pure lead? :wink:

2) Wheel weights are cheep and easy to find.

Not anymore. The old lead based wheel weights are very rapidly becoming things of the past, and they are using zinc, which has a much higher melt temp than wheel weights. :wink:

3) Stretches my supply of pure lead.

Why not simply use wheel weight then. If the difference between 50/50 pure lead and wheel weights doesn't make the game animals complain, then why not simply use the wheel weights? :wink:

The reason folks use pure lead is that quite often, the molds used to cast the round balls for rifles, are made so that when the all-lead cools and shrinks, it's the diameter that the shooter wants for the barrel and patch combination.

When you use an alloy, the shrinkage is less. So the tight ball and thick patch combo that one fellow uses, may not load if that fellow switches from all-lead to alloy, OR the patch will need to be thinner and then might burn through, blowing accuracy. That's all. :grin: Those that work up a ball/patch/powder combination with an alloy, should probably stick to using an alloy in the future.

While an all-lead round ball will probably deform more in a big game animal (there are lots of variables), if the diameter of the ball will make a large enough hole to do the job when all lead, then when it's lead-alloy and doesn't deform to a larger diameter, it should be fine.

Some prefer one, some another. :idunno:

All that matters is either the ball hits the target where the shooter wanted it to hit, OR the game animal is harvested in a quick and humane manner. And the OP is right, about the difference, as well as the big game animals probably don't know the diff between getting hit with all lead or a ball that's lead alloy :shocked2:

LD

 

[Elkeater]

Pure lead is best because it;..... is consistent,

Consistent is a huge word in the accuracy of any firearm.

 

[jfaldo]

I shoot a lot of 20:1 (20lbs lead to 1lb tin or 19lbs lead to 1lb tin depending on who you ask what 20:1 actually means ) in other black powder rifles not discussed here. The reason I shoot only pure lead in my roundballs is the cost first and foremost. You think pure lead is expensive then go look at the price of tin lately, ouch. I will not put any wheelweight anything in any of my guns. To many unknown variables there for my taste. I did find 6.5lbs of pure lead while metal detecting a 1800,s ghost town the other day. Just like Christmas it was :wink:

 

[Rifleman1776]

Pure lead is best because it;..... is consistent, obturates easily, offers maximum expansion at low velocities, is easiest to pull, is most often the cheapest to buy, IMO is the most accurate in a ML, casts easily....etc.....etc....

Yes! other materials will work....But the question is "what is best"....pure lead, in a muzzleloader with a round ball....

Yep. The obvious and best reasons possible. Also, I'll add...consistency. Screwing with percentages o other unknown metals gives a mystery ball. Lead, as pure and soft as you can get it is consistent at all aspects of use, from melting and casting to loading and shooting. My choice.

 

[hanshi]

The deer with the bruised shoulder story sounds, to me, a tad flaky. I use pure lead almost exclusively in rifles. I say "almost" because occasionally I do shoot WW ball through my .40. For my smoothbore I shoot WW ball because it does very well and I have a lot of it from decades ago. That's the only gun that gets strictly WW ball.

I have, Probably, 500 pounds (maybe more) of pure lead and at least 200 pounds of WW. This will last me a lifetime, no doubt. So the rifles get lead ball and the smoothbore gets the WW.

 

[Black Hand]

The deer with the bruised shoulder story sounds, to me, a tad flaky.

To me as well. I shot a deer in essentially the same spot with a lead ball and had it go through the shoulder blade, the spine, the other shoulder blade and lodge just under the skin on the far side.

Sounds like something went wrong while loading....

 

[bubba.50]

The deer with the bruised shoulder story sounds, to me, a tad flaky.

To me as well. I shot a deer in essentially the same spot with a lead ball and had it go through the shoulder blade, the spine, the other shoulder blade and lodge just under the skin on the far side.

Sounds like something went wrong while loading....

I agree. if a pure lead ball "bounced off" a deer's shoulder there was either somethin' wrong in the loadin' process or he didn't see that saplin' twixt him & the deer.

 

[coloradoclyde]

In order for the ball to have bruised the deer, it had to have bounced off... I have seen many balls bounce of targets....I was even hit by one once....I did shoot a deer in the head with a .303 British once and the alloy lead bullet (19 BHN) bounced right off....
Hard lead balls are even more prone to bouncing than soft lead balls...unless the hard ones are extremely brittle and frangible...

The one unifying factor in all the instances I speak of is, ..........velocity!
Composition of the lead was irrelevant.

 

[uno676]

About the deer I would say the patch slipped when loading to one side off the ball. I had that happen once it lost a lot of velocity. For weeding out WW inconsistency you can weigh the bullets for consistent weight

 

[Rifleman1776]

Once on a hunt the guys in camp decided to have a shooting match. All but me had rifles. I was carrying my Brown Bess but had both ball and shot in my pouch. The target was fastened to a tree less than 25 yards away. When my turn came I loaded a pure lead .715" ball and fired. Immedidately we all heard it whizzing through the air. It lightly touched the top of the ear of the guy standing next to me. :shocked2: No injury but even a fraction of an inch closer to his head would have been disastrous. I have never shot into a tree, on purpose, since.

 

[hanshi]

Once on a hunt the guys in camp decided to have a shooting match. All but me had rifles. I was carrying my Brown Bess but had both ball and shot in my pouch. The target was fastened to a tree less than 25 yards away. When my turn came I loaded a pure lead .715" ball and fired. Immedidately we all heard it whizzing through the air. It lightly touched the top of the ear of the guy standing next to me. :shocked2: No injury but even a fraction of an inch closer to his head would have been disastrous. I have never shot into a tree, on purpose, since.

Then how in the world do you kill your trees? :idunno: